


five tips for the beginner piano player

by 24Carrots



Category: Schitt's Creek (TV) RPF
Genre: 5 Things, Blow Jobs, Explicit Sexual Content, Face-Fucking, Flirting Using Music Terminology, M/M, Piano, Pining, Probably Too Much Music Terminology, piano lessons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:15:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29403945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/24Carrots/pseuds/24Carrots
Summary: Noah teaches Dan how to play the piano and they both learn some new things about each other.
Relationships: Dan Levy/Noah Reid
Comments: 9
Kudos: 53
Collections: RPFebruary Prompt Fest





	five tips for the beginner piano player

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [rpfebpromptfest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/rpfebpromptfest) collection. 



> **Prompt:** Noah teaches (or tries to teach) [someone] how to play a complicated song on the piano.
> 
> Prompter, I hope this is sort of what you were looking for. 
> 
> I am not a piano teacher, but I know just enough to wring innuendo out of musical terminology, so we have that to look forward to. Since Noah is also not a piano teacher, I hope you'll just blame him for any inaccuracies.
> 
> I hand-waved any timeline and logistical problems, and everyone is single.

**1\. Don’t skip the warm-up**

Noah stands to Dan’s left behind the piano bench and tries to gauge if he can fit next to him without making continuous contact from knee to shoulder. Unless making continuous contact from knee to shoulder is the idea here, and Dan doesn’t actually want to learn how to play the piano. Noah is still not sure.

He decides to stand for now. “So. Where do you want to start?”

“I don’t know. You’re in charge. At the beginning, I guess.”

“Okay. Well.” Noah licks his lips. Where does he usually start? “We should warm up. Let’s start at Middle C.”

“That sounds like the middle, not the beginning.” Dan turns his head and grins. 

“Ha, yeah,” Noah laughs, maybe a little harder than that deserves. He’s just so… nervous? He shouldn’t be nervous. It’s just… Dan. Dan who smells amazing and who he hasn’t stopped thinking about since—

“So… Middle C?” 

“Yeah it’s—” Noah reaches awkwardly around Dan to play the C in the middle of the piano and all the stuff in his pocket catches on a cluster of low notes. “Oops. It’s this one.”

“Here.” Dan scoots over on the bench. “Sit.”

“Uh. Sure.” Noah sits. The contact is not quite continuous, but close enough to make him forget where he was going with this.

“How do we warm up?” 

Noah clears his throat and resists the urge to tug at his collar. He’s already very warm. “If you start your warm-ups at Middle C, working up with your right hand and down with your left hand, that gives you a good, even warm-up. So…” Noah places his own right hand on the C below Dan’s. “Just do what I do.” 

Dan plunks the C-D-E sequence along with Noah. When they play the last note, Noah pushes off to the next group of C-D-E and lands on Dan’s hand. He catches the black D-sharp key, too, which perfectly underscores his feeling of growing inadequacy.

“Was I supposed to move?” Dan asks.

“Yeah, Jesus. Sorry. I guess a little explanation would have helped.”

“No, you’re fine. Maybe just show me and then I’ll follow you,” Dan says, squeezing his knee in what is probably reassurance but could also be foreplay.

He doesn’t know what anything means now. Not since the wrap party a week ago, when Dan found him in the hallway outside the bathrooms and kissed him. He was drunk. Noah was very drunk. But they were very definitely Dan and Noah. And neither of them has said or done anything about it since. 

Noah shows him the warm up and tries not to make it a thing when Dan leans closer to reach the lowest notes. When Dan plays each key, the pads of his long fingers stroke delicately along the smooth white surface. His form is all wrong, but Noah likes the way it looks. He likes the way it feels, too, across his shoulders. Would it feel different if it was Dan and not David? 

“Did I do it right?” Dan asks. 

“Yeah, sorry.” He clears his throat. “That’s a good start. But when you play, you want to actually curl your fingers. So…” 

And well, fuck it. Regardless of what Dan wants here, tactile is best. He takes Dan’s hand and holds it open, palm up. 

“You’re playing with straight fingers,” he says, demonstrating by straightening his own fingers and playing against the pads of Dan’s palm. 

His hands are soft and long and so elegant. He risks a glance up to Dan’s face, but it’s a little too reminiscent of the _well this is new_ face he made after he kissed him, so he returns his attention back to their hands. 

“When my fingers are straight, I don’t have nearly as much control as when I play like this,” he says, curling his fingers and tapping them in a quick staccato beat up and down Dan’s hand. 

“I see.” Dan’s voice is more quiet than Noah is used to, so he risks another look at his face. His face is more quiet than he’s used to, too. He lets go of Dan’s hand before he does something very unprofessional. 

Dan puts his fingers back on the keys. “Like this?”

It’s close, maybe close enough, but… “Straighten your wrists,” he says, and pushes up on the heel of his palm. “And then it’s almost like you’re holding a rock or a ball. Yes, perfect.”

Dan’s shy but proud smile when Noah says _perfect_ is something worth filing away.

Noah teaches him a few more warm-ups in the time they have left. He gets more comfortable making adjustments to Dan’s form, thanks to the occasional snarky reply and Dan looking at him _like that_ whenever he touches him. 

“Thank you,” he says. Noah offers a hug, which is normal, and Dan drops a kiss on his cheek in the process, which is not so rare as to mean anything in particular, probably.

“Of course, man. See you next time.”

Dan grins. “See you next time.”

**2\. Master the fundamentals**

Next time, Noah is more prepared. He sketched out a quick plan for their lesson in his black notebook, watched a few YouTube tutorials to get an idea of how he might introduce the basics, and spent his morning shower thinking about Dan’s hands playing him with perfectly-curved fingers, so hopefully that’s out of the way.

This lesson goes much more smoothly. After they warm up, Noah explains the bare minimum of reading music in common time, four beats to a measure, two quarter notes to a half note, four quarter notes to a whole. He points out middle C on the simple one-octave scale he wrote on blank staff paper. There are any number of books and tools for teaching this stuff, but he likes the idea of handing Dan something in his own handwriting. It seems personal, and he wants this to seem personal.

Next, he shows Dan how to play the scale, tucking his thumb under to transition his fingering with each hand. 

“I’m sorry, you said this is a fingering technique?”

“Yes. Problem?”

“Nope.” Dan shakes his head with his lips tucked between his teeth.

“That’s what it’s called! Don’t make it dirty.”

“I believe you!” Dan returns his hands to the keys as his smile breaks free. “Show me the proper fingering technique. Curved fingers, right?”

“Daniel,” Noah warns, “these are fundamentals everyone should know.”

“Show me,” Dan says again, not at all like he said it the first time.

“Okay.” 

Noah shows him again. “Fingering is important because it helps keep the right notes under your hands at all times. This way you avoid overstretching, which can cause strain.”

Dan drops all his fingers down on the keys to make a clashing chord of protest. “You’re doing this on purpose.”

Noah turns and studies him. His neck is a little flushed. “What would be my purpose?”

His eyes narrow. “You tell me.”

“Okay.” Noah licks his lips and tries to make his face look as innocent as possible. “You said you wanted me to teach you how to play. Which I can’t do until I know you understand the proper fingering technique.”

That one was on purpose, and Dan gives him a long look before he returns his hands to the piano. “One hand or two?”

“Start with one.” Dan shakes his head, his dimple sinking deep in profile, and starts playing the scale with one hand. 

Once he has the fingering down with both hands, Noah winds up his heavy analog metronome so he has something to do with his hands while he talks.

“I like using scales to practice playing at tempo. It’s not really practical to try to learn most songs on an even beat until you’ve got the trickier parts figured out, so scales are good for teaching your hands to go at a steady rhythm. Don’t.” He points a finger at Dan and his smirk. 

“I didn’t.” He did.

“We’ll start here,” he says, setting the metronome at sixty beats per minute and flicking the pendulum to one side to get it going. 

He shows Dan how to play along, and then lets him play the scale a few times until he’s consistently on-beat.

Noah pauses the metronome. “Perfect,” he says, and gets the face he’s looking for. “So now, we just keep increasing the speed until we can’t really keep any sort of rhythm.”

That one was on purpose, too, but Dan just clamps his mouth shut and hums as Noah bumps up the speed and starts it again. Dan picks up the faster pace pretty easily. 

In between attempts, the clicking of the metronome is loud and all-encompassing. Noah is normally immune to it, but here, with Dan, the _tap tap tap_ of the needle feels heavy and magnetic, an invisible force pulling their heartbeats and breaths into alignment. 

“That’s so good, Dan,” he says softly, intentionally, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t imagine the side eye. He raises the speed another twenty beats per minute.

Dan plays along the first time, just behind the beat, but trips over his fingers on the second attempt and plunks down on the keys in frustration.

“This is ridiculous,” Dan says, and before Noah can ask what that means, Dan’s hand closes around the back of his neck and his lips press warm and wanting against his. 

The metronome ticks away at a hundred beats per minute, and the kisses come on the downbeat. Noah’s heart picks up speed until it’s marching along in steady quarter notes. Dan’s hand inches farther up his thigh with each measure. Noah opens his mouth, and Dan’s tongue sweeps in, a half note, a whole, a fermata, and then Noah loses track of the beat and starts kissing him back. 

Noah skates a hand up his back to pull him deeper into the kiss. He’s wanted this for longer than he cares to admit, and the metronome regulates all that aching desire into a steady cadence of hands and lips and breath, spreading it out so it feels like it might last forever.

The metronome clicks off, startling them both. 

“I’ve been wanting to do that since you said Middle C,” Dan says. 

“Only since then?” Noah asks, and tries not to worry that he’s asking for too much.

Dan glances down at his lips and back up. “No.”

Noah rubs his hand along a shallow scratch in the piano’s finish. “Anything else you’ve been wanting to do?”

Dan tips his head back and groans. “Yes? But I think we should, um. Think about this. Just because of… work and everything. And stick to the fundamentals today.” 

Disappointment burns hot and fast up his cheeks. “Sure. Um. Okay then. Let’s look at some chords.”

“Noah.” Dan traces his bottom lip with his thumb before he kisses him so, so gently. “Not those fundamentals.”

**3\. Start slowly**

“Okay, you said you wanted to learn to play piano,” Noah says, leaning back so he’s out of reach of Dan’s mouth, which has taken very seriously to Noah’s suggestion that they warm up before they start playing.

“I do.” It’s not convincing. He clears his throat. “I do.” Slightly more convincing.

“Okay. So today, I thought we’d learn some easy songs in the key of C to get the hang of reading music and playing at the same time.”

“Um, so. About that? I was actually wondering if we could skip ahead.”

Noah looks at him and Dan looks right back. “Skip ahead?” 

“Yeah. To the song I actually want to learn.”

“I… Are we still talking in some kind of metaphor or—”

“No. I mean yes, I’m very interested in _skipping ahead_.” He leans over to kiss Noah again, like somehow Noah is supposed to keep his train of thought afterwards. “But I was thinking if I learn one song and like it, then I would go back and do it the right way. Literally. Metaphorically I would like to learn many songs.” He traces the seam of Noah’s shirt sleeve around the curve of his shoulder, which sends a shiver of want down his spine.

“I think I’ve got it.” He doesn’t but they don’t have to have that talk right now. “What’s the literal song?” 

“ _Never is a Promise_ by Fiona Apple. Do you know it?”

“Yeah. That’s a great song. Not exactly a beginner song, though. Do you have music for it?”

“Um. No?” Dan smiles like he knows he should look sheepish but is very deliberately choosing not to.

“Then I guess we’ll have to wait to skip ahead until next time. Literally.” He kisses him one more time to hold them over. “Metaphorically we can skip ahead as soon as I teach you _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_.”

Dan nods and purses his smile. “A true classic.”

“Next time maybe you’ll remember to bring the sheet music.” Noah files that away too, the way his face changes when he uses this voice. 

“I did not expect you to be like this.” The way Dan is biting his lip, Noah takes _like this_ to mean something good. 

“Like what?” Noah asks, leaning close enough to smell his shampoo.

“Stern.”

“Oh. Well this is nothing. I haven’t even gotten out the ruler.” He smiles a little to soften it. 

He has a sense of how to move around Dan; he has almost from the beginning. But even after a week of flirtatious texting, he’s not really sure what Dan expected from this whole piano lesson arrangement. Or anything that might come out of it, for that matter.

“Mmm. Because we’re starting slow.”

“That’s right. Now, let’s learn _Twinkle Twinkle_.”

Noah teaches him the melody and the accompanying chords separately, singing the letter of each note while Dan plays to help him keep track of where he is on the sheet music. When Dan switches to the left hand, Noah puts his hand on Dan’s back to give his arm more room, and Dan smiles. 

When it’s time to try it with both hands, Noah shows him how slowly he wants him to take it. 

“It’s always better to start way slower than you think you need to,” he says. “You want to go at whatever speed gives your brain enough time to anticipate and correctly hit the next note or chord without slowing down. You want to be able to hear your mistakes and correct them so they don’t become a habit.”

“Okay.” 

Dan begins to play, and his face changes into what Noah thinks of privately as his game face. It’s the same face that nods solemnly at him sitting as best as he can in Patrick’s insanely tight jeans and asks if he’s comfortable. Noah loves that face, especially at close range like this. His single-minded focus is stunning.

Dan picks up the song pretty quickly, so Noah pulls the music for _Happy Birthday_ out of his small stack of print-outs, since it uses similar chords.

“You said after _Twinkle Twinkle_ we could skip ahead. I worked so hard.”

Noah laughs and lays a hand on his thigh. Rubs. Tries not to get lost in what Dan’s eyes do. “You did work very hard.”

“So…?” Dan says, resting his chin on Noah’s shoulder.

Noah considers his options. What he would like to do, when he takes into account their working relationship and not just the increasing need in his pants, is to teach him _Happy Birthday_ , take him out to dinner, and see where it goes. But he doesn’t know if Dan wants that because he doesn’t know what Dan wants, except that, in this moment at least, Dan wants him.

“Dan, why did you ask me to teach you piano? We could have— I would have—” Noah clears his throat. “I’d like to know.”

“Um.” Dan looks like he’s weighing how honest to be. “To get to know you, I guess?”

“To get to know me?” Noah tries not to sound dubious. 

They do know each other. They’re friends. Dan came to his birthday party and his album release. Noah’s been to brunch with his friends and spent afternoons on a boat with them. And Noah knows what his kisses feel like, not just the texture or the pressure or the taste, but what they _feel_ like, in his gut. 

“I thought it would be a way to ease in and see if… I mean we’ve never been alone like this,” Dan says. “Not on purpose, really. And you’ve spent so much time in the world I made. I just… wanted to know what it was like in yours.”

Dan looks down at his cuticles, which is his way of saying he’s in over his head without saying it. 

Noah nudges his shoulder. “So you’re not just here for the fingering?”

Dan drops his head into Noah’s shoulder and laughs. “I actually would like to learn _Never is a Promise_. I can do without _Happy Birthday_. I’m not even really into birthdays.”

“Okay,” Noah says, closing the fallboard. “What about dinner? Are you into that?”

Dan’s shoulders, his arms, his whole face relax as he nods. “Very into that.”

They walk to the Italian place on the corner because it’s close, the food is good, and it has a preoccupied wait staff and clientele more likely to find Noah and Dan boring than newsworthy. Dinner is delicious, Dan makes him laugh through most of it, and somewhere after the appetizer Noah looks across the table and catches Dan’s eye. 

Dan is right. It’s nice to get time in alone. It’s different. They’re different. They’re even better.

**4\. When learning a new song, don’t start at the beginning every time**

They end up bringing half of the meal back with them. Noah isn’t sure if they ordered too much, or if, now that they’ve gotten to know each other at this speed, they’re both itching to go a little faster. 

Noah finishes putting the leftovers in the fridge and turns to find Dan standing at the end of the counter, tapping a finger against the corner of the countertop. 

“Can I get you a drink or something?”

Dan looks up. “No. I’m okay.”

“Okay.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you like that at the wrap party.”

“Hm.” Noah chooses his next words carefully. “What should you have done?”

“This,” Dan says with a shrug. “Asked you to dinner. And this,” he adds, leaning in and kissing Noah like it’s their first time all over again, sweet and full of promise. 

Noah’s surprised sound is muffled against Dan’s lips. He closes his eyes and savors the way Dan’s hands feel, with his broad palms gently cradling Noah’s face. Dan is a wonderful kisser at any tempo.

After, Dan stays close, and Noah holds him there by the hem of his sweater. 

“You know the biggest mistake most people make, when they’re trying to learn to play a song?” Noah keeps his voice low so as not to pierce the soft stillness around them.

“What?”

“Trying to learn the song start to finish. Sometimes you have to go out of order. Tackle the part that seems the most manageable first. Otherwise you end up giving up before you figure it out.”

“Mmm.” Dan smiles, understanding, and kisses him again, stepping closer so Noah has to tip his head back and lift on his toes to reach. The abrupt change of position agitates his craving for more of Dan until it’s lapping at his tenuous control. 

“Come upstairs?” Noah asks, stepping back.

Dan nods, catching his lip in his teeth, and follows him. 

In his room, Noah pulls Dan’s sweater off after a quiet, “Can I?”

Dan unbuttons Noah’s shirt, and they both watch his hands with unfocused eyes. He slips it off Noah’s shoulders as he moves closer again, almost in slow motion. 

Noah watches, rapt, as Dan’s eyes drop to his mouth and he follows his gaze with a slow, drugging kiss. He uses just the right amount of tongue as he pulls Noah closer, until Noah can feel the hairs on his chest against his own. Noah steps forward, even though there’s nowhere else to go. He’s been holding all of this at arms length because it seemed like that’s what Dan wanted. It’s amazing to let go, lean in.

At the piano, Dan’s hands are still tentative, touching lightly on the keys until he’s sure he’s where he’s supposed to be. Here, standing next to Noah’s bed, he touches Noah with hands that know exactly where they belong. Noah wraps his arms around him, palms flat on the soft, freckled skin of Dan’s back, and revels in the feeling of Dan’s fingers as they play over the hinge of his jaw and down his neck. 

He presses up on Noah’s chin and Noah drops his head back to give Dan more room. The cool, delicate touch of his fingers works in stark, glorious contrast with the relentless heat of his breath and the harsh edge of his teeth at his pulse point. He fastens his lips there, sucking, and Noah makes a shuddery sound from somewhere deep in his throat. Dan hums in response, a desperate harmony. All Noah can think is _more._

Dan pushes gently on his shoulders, inviting him to lie back on the bed, but Noah sits instead, catching his fingers on Dan’s waistband to hold him close. 

“Can I?” he asks again, brushing his thumb over the button of Dan’s faded jeans. 

“Please.” Dan’s voice is already wrecked, hoarse with longing, and they’ve barely started. Fuck.

He squeezes his waist and spreads his hands down his legs slowly, feeling his lean thighs through the denim. Dan sags into him, his fingers curling into the short hairs at the base of Noah’s head, scratching, encouraging, as Noah’s fingertips skate back up the front of his thighs, as his lips press wet, teasing kisses into his stomach. 

“This is more tedious than that fucking scale exercise,” Dan says, but the wobble in his voice and the slow tremor in his legs betray him. Noah smiles and nips at the soft skin below his belly button, then huffs a laugh at the squawk Dan makes in protest. 

Noah turns his head and kisses the inside of Dan’s forearm before returning to the task of removing his jeans. Dan is already hard, pressing against his underwear as Noah unzips his pants and slides them slowly down his hips. 

He turns his hand to palm Dan’s cock where it’s straining against the black fabric, and then bends lower to trace it with his tongue. Dan’s hands fly back to his head, urging him on, so Noah keeps going, mouthing lower and pulling a series of gorgeous involuntary noises out of Dan in the process. He’s so responsive, so present, just like he is on set, but all of that is tinged with a level of abandon Noah wasn’t expecting. It’s intoxicating, and Noah has to try not to push him too much yet, in case he moves wherever Noah wants him. Noah won’t last.

Dan nudges Noah back so he can pull his underwear down, and Noah watches him step out of them, smiling at the way he smiles when he sees Noah watching.

“Better?” Noah asks, kissing his stomach again before smiling up at him with his chin pressed into the little bit of softness above his hip. 

“Yours can go, too,” Dan says, pointing a finger at Noah’s still-clothed lower half. 

“Now who’s stern?” Noah says with a grin, and is both shocked and delighted when Dan hooks his arm under his knees and hoists them both farther up on the bed with only a muffled grunt to betray the effort it costs him. 

“Just impatient,” he says, wrestling off Noah’s jeans and underwear with one-handed skill that is less surprising than it would have been before he saw how quickly he mastered _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_.

“You know, patience is an important skill to acquire for anyone learning to play—”

“Imma stop you there.” Dan puts a finger to his lips and follows with his mouth. Noah can feel the curve of his smile against his lips, and loves that he still smiles when they’re kissing as Dan and Noah. “I can be patient at the piano. But here, no instruction is necessary.”

“How will you know what I like?” Noah musters as much challenge as he can as he combs his fingers through Dan’s hair, pushing back toward the crown of his head and out of his eyes. Dan doesn’t seem to mind Noah’s hands in his hair, so he tugs just a little. Dan closes his eyes and the _sound_ he makes is just… Fuck.

“Mmm. I’ll show you.” Dan kisses him again, unhurried and practiced, and closes a hand loosely around his cock. He strokes up and squeezes, thumbing over the precome leaking from his slit, and drags another noise from Noah that he swallows greedily. Noah loves it.

Dan can barely read music, but as he moves down with his hands, with his mouth, he can clearly sightread Noah like they’ve spent years together. They have, sort of. Not like this, never like this, but they’ve gotten used to action and reaction, taking each other’s cues, following each other’s signals. Transferred to this context, the game of push and pull is exhilarating.

Dan finds the sensitive spot on the inside of his thigh and works it over until Noah has to twist his fingers in Dan’s hair again to pull him off. 

“If you get too carried away there, I’ll come,” Noah breathes. It’s meant to be a warning, but Dan takes it like a promise.

Undeterred, he mouths under Noah’s dick, up the length of it, back down, around his balls. His mouth is hot and insatiable and glorious and _relentless_ , and every time he sinks down around Noah’s cock and lifts up again, he pulls expletives and superlatives that devolve into breathy, scattered _Daniel_ s, until even those are unintelligible. 

Noah reaches into his hair again and Dan rolls them sideways and squeezes his hip, inviting him to move, relaxing his mouth so Noah can hold him by the hair and use him like that if he wants to. Sweet fucking Jesus he wants to. Dan strokes the muscles in his hips, in his back, urging him on as Noah fucks his mouth. His mouth is warm and wet and perfect and Noah is so, so close.

His orgasm unfurls from deep inside and rises to the surface until the timbre of it begins to vibrate along his skin. He comes with a gasp, and Dan closes his mouth around him to contain it, to help him wring the rest of the pleasure out of it. It’s exactly, perfectly, what he likes. 

While Dan helps him finish, Noah releases his hold on his hair and pets it softly back into place. He strokes the shorter hairs at Dan’s temples, damp with the sweat of his effort, and babbles vague affirmations until he’s spent.

Dan’s hand disappears from his hip, and Noah is about to reach for it until he feels Dan’s come soaking his leg, the accompanying moan resonating around Noah’s still-sensitive dick. 

“Christ, Dan,” he says, stroking his fingers through his hair, down the back of his head, across his shoulders. Dan pulls off, finally, and moves up the bed, but not enough to put them face to face. He buries his face in Noah’s chest instead, pressing uncoordinated kisses to whatever part of him is closest. 

“Told you.” Dan slurs the words into his collarbone, his voice raspy from Noah’s dick. 

Noah laughs and pulls him up the rest of the way so he can kiss him properly. “You did.” 

Dan tastes salty from sweat and come. He also tastes like satisfaction, the way Noah imagined Dan’s little proud smile would taste whenever he rewards him with _perfect_.

“Perfect,” Noah says, and tastes it again.

Later, as they clean up, Noah invites him to stay and offers sleep clothes for him to borrow. 

He waits until Dan falls sleep, and then tiptoes back downstairs. Over dinner, the muses gifted him with a fresh idea for a song that’s been evasive so far. He’s pretty confident about the chorus. He has a verse that feels like the last verse, and one that feels like the first. And they definitely belong together, but he hasn’t been able to figure out how to link them.

Normally, tunes come to him more smoothly than this. Each of his songs is about a drive or a day or a dream, a logical narrative with a clear order, or a collection of feelings where the disorder is part of the logic. This one has been trickier, built on a melody that first started playing through his head a year or two ago, and filled in piece by piece, usually late at night like this. Well, not quite like this. Dan wasn’t in his bed the previous times; he just wanted him to be.

He’s not ready to say this one is _about_ Dan. He’s not ready to say it’s not about him. 

He pulls his songwriting notebook out of the piano bench and flips to the page where the rest of his notes are. He doesn’t want to wake Dan, but he can hear the notes in his head if he just ghosts his fingers over the keys without playing them, and that might help him get this down before it disappears.

By the time Dan comes looking for him, he’s deep in songwriting mode. He moved to the couch and took out his guitar, hoping it would be quiet enough for the sound not to carry upstairs. 

“Hey,” Dan says, scaring the shit out of him when he appears in the doorway. 

“Shit, did I wake you?” Noah says, trying to sound apologetic. Dan is… Gorgeous isn’t the right word. He’s sleep-rumpled and drowsy and squinting against the comparatively bright light of the lamp, but there’s something so intimate about the way his hair falls to the side and the way the sleep clothes he borrowed stop short of his ankles and leave a sliver of belly exposed. 

“I don’t know,” Dan says. “I woke up with an idea and had to get it in my notes app, and then I realized I left my phone down here in the kitchen.” Dan points toward the front door instead, adorably disoriented.

“I had an idea I had to get down, too,” Noah says, gesturing at the mess of papers around him.

“A song?” 

“Yeah.”

“Will you play it?”

“It’s not really done.”

“Something else then?” Dan asks, finding an open space on the couch and tugging a blanket over his exposed toes.

“Sure,” he murmurs. He’s relieved and touched and fucking floored that Dan still wants more of him. Noah already has his guitar in hand, so he stays on the couch with Dan. “This seems like a good one for the middle of the night.”

It’s melancholy—the best ones usually are—but maybe a little too much of himself to lay on Dan on their first night together, now that he’s actually singing it. Somewhere between the first and second set of breathin’ in and breathin’ out, Dan’s face changes. He can always trust Dan to listen to the lyrics. 

“It’s beautiful. I always forget how sad some of your songs are,” Dan says when he’s finished.

Noah laughs. “Says the guy whose one musical wish is to play _Never is a Promise_.”

Dan shrugs. “It’s like… post sadness though. It’s different when it’s told from the other side.”

“Fair enough,” Noah says, rubbing his fingers over the knuckles on Dan’s hand. “Why that one? I never asked.”

Dan moves his hand closer so their fingers notch together and looks out the window at the dark street. “I was twelve when she released it. It was summer and my parents signed me up for all these activities that were supposed to help me make friends, I think? But it was getting harder to hide… this.” He gestures up and down to encompass how specifically _himself_ he is, even here wearing Noah’s white t-shirt with his legs tucked under Noah’s blanket. 

Noah’s heart hurts at the thought of Dan hiding anything about himself, much less all of himself. Thank god somebody, somewhere told him he didn’t have to anymore. Noah squeezes his hand, and Dan finally looks at him. 

“Anyway I hated that summer. But there in the midst of it was this song about not defining yourself by what someone else made you feel. It just felt like… It was meant just for me. So. It seemed like a good one to learn.”

“Yeah.”

Dan squeezes his hand once more before he lets go and stands up. “But for now, I’m going to find my phone and see if I still have enough of that storyline ready and willing to be jotted down.”

“I’m just going to put things away,” Noah says. “And then I’ll be up.” 

Dan nods and squeezes his shoulder. “Maybe after this one, you could teach me one of your songs.”

“Maybe I could,” Noah says softly. 

Maybe by then, he’ll be done with the song he was working on earlier. Will Dan feel like that one is just for him, too? He hopes so, because now, he’s sure it is.

**5\. Set aside time to practice**

Now that Noah knows what the song means to Dan, he holds firm on at least thirty minutes of practice before they move to the couch or his bed or, on one memorable occasion, directly underneath the piano itself. 

Dan is in the part of the year devoted to editing, which means he can go hours in a windowless room and emerge without any concept of the passing of time. Noah is pretty sure he would see Dan without the piano, but since the piano is more fickle when it’s given irregular attention, they set a regular time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays for practice. 

Noah took the sheet music for _Never is a Promise_ and broke it out into more manageable phrases that he’s been teaching Dan one at a time. They’re about to start stringing them together. 

Dan makes good progress with the song, and when he’s done he turns that same focus and energy and attention on him. Noah’s falling, hard and fast. He’s pretty sure he’s not alone. 

When Dan goes back to L.A., Noah has a keyboard delivered, a nice one with all eighty-eight keys and a foot pedal. He spends the day it arrives pacing around his living room. Dan likes gestures and gifts but some gifts say I’m thinking about you and some say I’m in love with you and a piano is probably closer to the latter.

When Dan calls to thank him, Noah says, nervously, “Imagine how much practice time you’ll have when I’m not around to distract you.”

“Yes. I’ll be playing at Carnegie Hall by the end of the year.”

“You’re sure it’s okay? You can pick out something else. Or—” _Return it_ , he stops himself from saying. He rubs the back of his neck and tries to keep his voice even. 

“Noah, I love it.” Over the phone, his voice sounds thick and true. “It’s been great for writing breaks. And Red sits under it when I play, so I must not be that bad.” 

Noah releases the breath he’s been holding in a shaky laugh. “Okay. Good.”

“And this way, if you come visit, you’ll be able to use it, too.” There’s so much riding on the breathy way he says _if_. It makes Noah want to fly there now, just to kiss away any doubts. 

“When I come visit, Daniel, it will be really nice to play with you again.”

Dan hums to himself, and Noah can picture his face in his head, just from that sound. “Okay. Good.”

“Speaking of. I was thinking about coming next week. I’m about to get busy with the play and it might be nice to see you before that.”

“Yeah,” Dan says, the smile in his voice warming Noah across the distance. “I mean work might be crazy, but I’m sure Red would love to see you.” He clears his throat. “And so would I.”

“Okay,” Noah says, and opens his laptop to book a flight.

The distance will take some getting used to, but the good thing about practice, the entire point of it actually, is to build good habits. They’ve made a habit of each other now, one he doesn’t intend to break. And when work or commitments get in the way, well. Any half-decent piano player learns how to improvise.

The day before Noah is supposed to leave for L.A., Dan sends him a message: 

_I hope you’re ready to teach me something new._

The message is followed by a video of Dan playing _Never is a Promise_. With the camera positioned where it is, Noah has a perfect head-on view of him, instead of the profile view he’s used to. From this angle, Noah can see the little dent of concentration between his brows, the quick side-to-side motion of his eyes looking a step ahead of his hands. The way the confidence builds and spreads across his face once he knows he’s got it.

When he finishes, on-tempo and nearly flawless, Noah wishes he was there to tell him it was perfect just to watch the way his face changes. Then it changes anyway. Noah has a front row seat to the soft smile that blooms higher on the left side than the right, firing up his dimple. Noah smiles back and packs the sheet music for the next song he wants to teach him, one he just finished.

The next day, in L.A., neither one of them is feeling particularly patient. Noah leaves his suitcase by the door and follows Dan to his room. They skip the warmup, all but the most necessary fundamentals, and Dan plays memories and promises over his body with his fingers like he’s been practicing for years, leaving Noah breathless. 

After, Dan murmurs into his shoulder, “So anyway, how are you?”

Noah laughs and scoots down on the bed so he can see his face, finally, in real time. 

“Perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you [popfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/popfly), [thegrayness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrayness), and this_is_not_nothing for organizing and running this fest! Thanks also to S for giving this a read-through.


End file.
